Page 4 of Always Been His

My stomach flips hard.

“What?” I whisper, while everything else slips away. The bonfire. Iris and Marcus. Radien. Me leaving in two days.

“Nothing,” he murmurs, though his voice sounds rough now.

“Gray.” I move closer, my toes curling in my sandy flip-flops.

“Sienna.” The way he says my name in his real voice, low with no hint of laughter or teasing, knocks the breath out of me.

I turn back toward the ocean before he can see my face do whatever my face is doing and hear my heart trying to escape. Then I try to walk away, even though it’s the last thing I want to do, and my flip-flop catches.

My foot lands flat on the edge of a piece of driftwood I didn’t see in the dark. My ankle rolls. The Corona slips out of my hand and into the sand. Gravity catches up with me, and I grab the front of his t-shirt on the way down, my fingers fisting in the soft cotton. He swears low. His arm wraps around the small of my back, and the two of us go down hard.

His back hits the sand, and I land on top of him. The breath punches out of his chest into mine. His hands land on my waist, spread wide, hot through the cotton of my sundress. My hair has come loose from behind my ear, forming a curtain of blue tips around us. His face is two inches from mine. His pupils are blown wide. His chest is rising and falling fast under my palms.

“Are you okay?” he breathes, tightening his grip on my waist.

I nod, my eyes dropping to his lips. I should think about this. About being alone with Grayson. About Iris. About the fact that if I kiss him, everything changes after this.

But I’m warm and dizzy and a little drunk, and Grayson is looking at me like he wants to kiss me too. So, before I can talk myself out of it, I lean forward and press my mouth to his.

His lips are full and warm and a little crooked beneath mine. The kiss tastes like Corona and smoke, and for half a second nothing exists except his mouth against mine.

Reality catches up to me. Iris, my best friend, Grayson’s little sister who we both love, would kill us if she saw us making out right now.

I jerk back. My hands fly off his chest.

“Oh my god,” I gasp, my fingers pressing to my lips like I can shove the kiss back in. “Oh my god, Gray, I am so sorry, I didn’t, I’m a little drunk, I shouldn’t have⁠—”

“Fuck it,” he breathes, catching the back of my neck.

His fingers slide up into the curls at my nape and he pulls me down. His mouth meets mine in the middle and my apology dies in my throat. His other hand slides from my waist up the side of my ribs, slow, his palm hot through the cotton. A soft sound slips out of me when his tongue traces my bottom lip, embarrassing and helpless. He tilts his head and deepens the kiss, tightening his hold. I’m no longer on top of him so much as wrapped around him, my knees in the sand on either side of his hips, his palm splayed against my ribs, his knuckles dragging just under the swell of my breast through the light fabric of my sundress.

His hips press up into mine, and I feel exactly how hard he is through the denim, the long thick line of him pressed right where I’m already aching, and a sound I’ve never made before escapes my lips, letting him know exactly what I’m feeling.

Grayson kisses like he’s been thinking about it. Like he’s been waiting for this as long as I have.

He pulls back just far enough to breathe. “You talk too much.”

“I was apologizing.”

“Don’t.” His forehead presses against mine. The word comes out rough, scraped raw. “Don’t apologize for that.”

I press my hands into his shoulders, the heat of his skin bleeding through the thin cotton of his t-shirt, solid muscle shifting underneath my palms. I’ve looked at Grayson Douglas a thousand times over the years. I know the exact way his blond hair falls over his forehead when it gets too long. The impossible blue of his eyes that have always made me feel studied instead of seen. The olive skin that keeps its summer tan straight through winter. The way he clicks his tongue when he is irritated or thinking too hard or trying not to say something he actually means.

Nothing prepared me for him looking at me like this.

“Gray,” I whisper. “Iris is⁠—”

“Iris isn’t here.” His fingertips trace the edge of my ribcage, in a slow drag that makes my breath catch in my throat. “It’s just you and me.”

I catch his eyes in the moonlight, and there is so much want in them I can’t think of another thing to say.

“I’ve been trying not to look at you all night.” His words are low, almost angry, like he’s confessing a crime. “This dress. Fuck, I wanted to make you go back upstairs and change.”

I laugh, and it comes out shaky. “It’s just a dress.”

“It’s too short, and it’s obvious you’re not wearing a bra. When you were standing in front of the fire and I could see—” He cuts himself off and looks me in the eye. “I want you, Sienna.”